


Marked

by lanalucy



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Binge Drinking, Break Up, Dresses, Excessive Drinking, F/M, Family, Fights, First Dates, First Time, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Infidelity, Lingerie, Marking, Moving In Together, Relationship Negotiation, Sex Games, Sleep Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanalucy/pseuds/lanalucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara goes out clubbing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderful newnumbertwo.

Kara could barely walk, but she managed somehow to slither into a cab outside the club.  When the driver asked for the address, Kara couldn’t remember it, but she described the building.  Luckily, the driver had seen the building earlier that day and he’d been able to get her there.  She dug crumply cubits out of her jeans pocket and thanked the guy, who handed her off to the building’s doorman.

“Evening, Lieutenant Thrace.”

Kara grinned drunkenly at the doorman and gave him a sloppy salute before getting on the elevator.  The doorman was kind enough to punch the button for her - she probably would have ended up hitting too many and getting off on the wrong floor.  She was thankful the ride was quick - she was just beginning to feel some nausea at the slight gees being pulled by the speedy rise of the elevator when it stopped.  She exited and found the right door, entered the code.   _I need to have a talk with Lee about using the date of his first Viper flight as his door entry code_.  It did not occur to her to wonder why she was at Lee’s apartment instead of her own.

She emptied her pockets onto the butcher block in the kitchen and stripped on the way to the bathroom, where she sucked down an entire glass of water _oh gods, that’s disgusting!_ , peed and brushed her teeth before climbing into bed and wrapping herself like an octopus around his warm body.

~~~

Lee was kissing Kara, and she tasted incongruously of toothpaste and whiskey and cigars.   _My fantasies are not usually quite so detailed_.  He put a hand down her back, palming a naked ass-cheek, grinding her against his partial erection.  She raised a knee to his hip and they both groaned at the contact.

~~~

Kara climbed fully on top, straddling Lee’s hips, leaving his mouth for a line of kisses along his jaw.  She widened her jaw, sucking on his neck with just the barest hint of teeth, listening for the sound from him that meant she’d hit a sweet spot.  

He whimpered out, “Kara.”  Then  “Gods.  Harder.”

_Oh, yeah._

~~~

_If this wasn’t a dream, that’d leave a monstrous hickey that even the collar of my uniform wouldn’t cover_.  The thought of Kara doing that, marking him for the whole world including his brother to see she’d claimed him, made him harden even more.  He pulled his hands up her body to her ribcage, lifting her away from him and capturing the tip of a breast in his mouth.  

He _hmmmed_ and her fingers curled into his shoulder.  “That’s good,” she panted.  He backed off just a bit, blowing at the wetness he was leaving behind, and switched sides.  “Yeah.  So good.”  She arched her back, just enough to push her lower body harder into him.

~~~

Kara reached forward and put both hands on the headboard.   _Lee never struck me as the kind to have a wrought iron bed frame_.  The change in her position left Lee mouthing her stomach, and she reached one hand to push his head down.  His hot breath hit her first, followed by a quick flick from his tongue.  She scooted her knees closer to the headboard.  “More.”

He laughed and his breath across her thighs made her shiver.  His arms went under her legs to pull himself closer and he frakked her with his lips and tongue, completely avoiding her clit, until Kara couldn’t take anymore and put her own hand down there to relieve the pressure.  His hand caught hers and stopped her and she moaned, “Gods, please Lee!  I need - I need...”

He pulled her closer still and moved to her clit, where he sucked and pulled at it until her thighs tightened around his face and she stiffened above him and her cries were ringing through his small apartment.  Her hands clutched his hair and the bed frame as he licked her gently down from her orgasm.  

~~~

He kissed the corner of her mouth, moving across her face to her ear, jaw, neck.  When he got to her collarbone, he couldn’t help sucking hard enough to leave marks on her body.  It was a dream, after all.  He could claim her, too.  Kara tilted her head forward to groan into his ear, “Please, Lee.  Frak me now.”

In all his fantasies about frakking Kara Thrace, it had never seemed so real - her breath on his neck, the sweat sticking them together, the taste of her on his tongue, or the way her voice sounded so raw as she said the words, “ _Frak me now_.”

_Gods_.  He pushed her knee up past his hip and slid in.   _GODS_.  The pitiful whimpering noises he was making might have been embarrassing if he weren’t listening to Kara emitting much the same sounds.

~~~

Kara clutched at Lee’s back, angling her feet into his ass.  “I won’t break, Lee.  Lords.  Frak me harder.”   _How does this feel so good?_  She found that spot on his neck again, sucked on it all the way through her next orgasm, when she slipped blissfully into the black of unconsciousness.

~~~

They were both so deeply asleep that Zak’s entrance and exit around noon the next day went completely unnoticed by them.  “Lee!  Kara never came home last night and she’s not answering her phone!  Have you -”  He stopped and looked at her keys in the kitchen.  His eyes followed her discarded clothing down the hall.  “ - I guess you have heard from her.”  Some part of him refused to go down the hall to Lee’s bedroom and confirm anything.  Right now, he hadn’t seen it, so it hadn’t happened.  Denial could be a good friend.

He left a note under Kara’s keys and walked back out, pushing down his seething anger.

_When you guys wake up, someone needs to call me.  Zak_

~~~

Lee rolled out of bed, hitting the head and running water over his face and hair.  He headed back to his room, stumbling over jeans between the door and the bed.  He caught himself on the footboard and his eyes followed the lump in front of him up to the blonde hair spread on his pillow.   _She looks terrible.  Most realistic dream ever_.  He crawled back in and Kara curled toward him.  The sheet dragged slowly down, revealing finger-shaped bruises on her ribs and hickeys on her collarbone and breasts.   _Hickeys_.  He ran-walked back to the bathroom mirror.   _Oh, shit_.

He walked back into his bedroom much more slowly, and sat on his bed with his back against the headboard, watching Kara sleep.  When she started to stir, he got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

~~~

Kara rolled to her back, stretching kinks out of her shoulders, still pleasantly buzzed from what had been a really frakking fantastic dream.  She opened her eyes and for a moment had no idea where she was.   _Shit.  Hasn’t happened in a long time.  Not since I’ve been with Zak.  Who does not need to know that the best wet dream I’ve had in years starred his brother_.

She got up, squinting at the hint of sunlight coming through the curtains, and used the bathroom.

~~~

“FRAK!!” rang down the hall.  He poured another cup and fixed it the way she liked it, held it out as he heard her feet pad down the hardwood toward the kitchen.

She grabbed it and gulped it down, then went to the pot for another.  She put the cup down on the counter, leaned forward and banged her head lightly on the cabinet door in front of her.  Without turning or opening her eyes, she asked, “It wasn’t a dream?”

Lee walked over, spread his arms on either side of her on the countertop, leaned into her and said over her shoulder, “I’m afraid not.”

“Too bad.  It was a great frakkin’ dream.”

“Yeah.  Best one _I’ve_ had in quite a while.”

She leaned back into him and put her hands on top of his.  “I won’t be able to hide these from Zak.”

“I won’t be able to hide mine from anybody.”

She cringed.   _Shit_.  She straightened and pushed back against him, making him move, then she turned to look at him.  “Oh, frak.”  She reached out a hand to touch it, but stopped herself.  “Any idea why I’m here?  I don’t remember leaving the club, much less getting here.”

“No idea.”  Lee pushed out a breath.  “Your clothes are on the chair over there.  I couldn’t find your underwear.”

“Thanks.  Guess I’d better go look.”  As she walked past the butcher block, she saw the paper stuck under her keys.  She read it, then handed it to Lee as she walked away.  

“Frak!”

“Guess I don’t have to worry about hiding anything from _him_.”

“Kara.”

“Don’t.  Just don’t.  I’m gonna take a shower.”

~~~

She almost wasn’t surprised to feel the air change as Lee pulled the curtain and got into the shower with her.  “What the frak are you doing?”

“Taking a shower.”

“With me.”

“Well, I’ve already seen it all, so why not?”

“Whatever.”  She went back to working the shampoo into her hair.

“Gods, Kara.  You have bruises everywhere.  Did you get in a fight last night?”

“Nope.  This is all you, Lee.”

“Sorry.”

“Any idea what we’re going to tell Zak?  I mean, I was drunk.  Drunk enough to come here instead of going home.  Not that that’s....shit.  I could have gone anywhere.  Ended up with anybody.  Might’ve been better if I’d gone home with a stranger instead of you.  Why’d I come here?”

“I have no idea, Kara, but at least here you were safe.  Sort of.”

She laughed.

~~~

It had been hours, and Zak had gotten tired of waiting for them to call him.  He’d let himself into Lee’s place and sat down on the far side of the living room.  Even if they looked, they wouldn’t see him until they cleared the hall and actually walked through the living room to either the front door or the kitchen.  Kara’s clothes were stacked neatly on the chair, and two coffee cups were sitting next to each other on the countertop, so he knew they’d been out here at least once since noon.

He could hear the murmur of voices down the hall below the spatter of water in the shower.   _Sounds like they’re in there together_.  A minute or two later, he heard Kara laugh.  The water turned off and he couldn’t hear much of anything.

“You got anything I can wear, Lee?  Those clothes smelled disgusting.”

“Some of Zak’s stuff is in the bottom drawer.  He’s smaller in the waist than I am.  Maybe something in there’ll fit you.”  He put his head around the edge of the doorway, his wet hair sticking out every which way.  All he could see of Kara was a flash of her hip as she looked under the bed.

“Found my underwear!”  She waved it in the air.

_What the frak?  Do I want to know why my girlfriend is looking for her underwear?  No, I don’t_.

Kara found a pair of cut off sweatpants with a drawstring and figured that was the best she was going to get for bottoms.  T-shirts, Lee had hundreds of, so she just grabbed one without even looking at it.

“By the way, you need to change your door code,” she called back toward him as she walked toward the kitchen.  “I remember thinking that last night.  It’s the only thing I remember.  Other than....Zak!”

“Zak?  You remember Zak?  Should I be insulted?”

“Zak’s here, Lee.”

“Oh.”

“You want coffee?”  She held a cup toward Zak.   _What the frak is the etiquette for frakking one’s boyfriend’s brother in a dream that turns out to be all too real and then talking to said boyfriend at said brother’s house the morning after?_  She doubted she’d be able to find a card for this special occasion.

“No, Kara.  I don’t want coffee.”  His voice was monotone.

She nodded and poured herself another cup, hoping the uncontrollable trembling she felt inside wasn’t showing, and handed a second one to Lee as he walked into the living room.  

_They’re not acting any different.  Have they been frakking since they met and I just never paid attention?_  As soon as Lee and Kara got settled into seats, he asked, “So. Is one of you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Zak and Lee were both surprised when Kara spilled out, “I got drunk last night.  So drunk I don’t remember leaving the club.  I don’t even remember which club.  I don’t know why I didn’t go home.  I don’t remember coming here.  I had this really great dream that evidently wasn’t a dream, and I frakked your brother last night.”  She took a breath and opened her mouth to say something else, then shut it and fixated on her coffee cup.

Three or four minutes of very uncomfortable silence later, Zak carefully said, “Was it the first time?”  He was really glad neither of them was looking at him closely enough to notice his clenched fists.

Lee and Kara both whipped their heads toward him and said, “What?  Yes!” at practically the same time.

They all sat there for another couple of minutes, until Zak broke the silence with, “You know that she dreams about you?”  He looked at Lee.

“What?  How -” was all Kara got out, before Zak interrupted her with a hand in her direction.

“You dream about him.  You say his name in your sleep.  Sometimes you turn to me at night and call me by his name while you’re frakking me in your sleep.”  He refused to look at Lee and see how this revelation was affecting him.  If his brother was in love with Kara, he didn’t want to know.  It was bad enough knowing she was in love with him.

“Oh.”

“How long have you been in love with him?”

“What?  Zak, I love you,” she protested.

“I know.”  Zak got up and walked around behind the couch.  He somehow found Lee’s hickey without looking, dug his thumb in a little.  “I want to see yours.”

Kara’s startled gaze was stuck to the hickey under Zak’s thumb.

“Now.”

“Zak,” Lee moved toward Kara protectively.

“No, Lee.  Just shut up.”  He looked at Kara again.  “You’ve never let me mark you.  Said you didn’t like that.  I want to see what you let him do.”  When she still hesitated, he finished, “He’s seen it all.  He frakked you last night.  You were in the shower together fifteen minutes ago.  I want to see his marks on your body.”  He watched Kara’s eyes widen.   _Was that fear?_

Kara put the coffee cup on the table and stood, not looking at either man.  She closed her eyes, then locked her gaze on Zak’s and pulled off Lee’s t-shirt.

“The rest.”

Kara was ashamed, and for the first time since her first week at the Academy, she felt compelled to cover herself.

“The sweats, Kara.”  Still no inflection in his voice.

She pushed them slowly down her hips until they pooled on the floor.

“Turn around.”  When she did, he burst out, “What the frak did you do to my girlfriend, Lee?  Gods.  She’s got bruises everywhere.”  His eyes bored into the back of her head.  “Is this what you like?  You like to be hurt?  Because, right now, I have to tell you that I could do that, and not regret it for a second.”

Kara whimpered as she turned back toward them.  “No.”

“Then why did you let him do this to you?”  Now the hurt in his voice was spilling out despite his efforts at control.  

Lee tensed on the couch and Zak dug his fingers into Lee’s hair to hold him still.  “How could you do this to her?  Do you like hurting women?”

“For gods’ sake, Zak, no!”  Lee twisted away, walked over and picked up the clothes Kara had discarded.  He held them out to her.  She looked at Zak, as if for permission to get dressed again.

Zak’s head was a whirlwind.  One thought rose to the surface.  He’d teased Lee the night he’d come over to meet Kara about being a girlfriend stealer.  It had only been a joke.  Lee had never actually done that.  But...“What happened that night after I passed out, anyway?”

“What night?” Kara asked.

“The night you two met.  Now that I think about it, that’s when everything changed between us.”  He watched Kara’s eyes dart to Lee and down again to the floor as her face crumpled.  Lee was studiously looking toward the kitchen.  “Something obviously happened that night.”  

“No, Zak.   _Nothing_ happened,” Kara insisted.

Zak gripped the couch, holding onto control by a mere thread.  “ _Something_ happened that night!” he shouted.  “Don’t tell me nothing happened.   I could cheerfully beat both of you to a pulp right now.  You frakked my brother!  And you, you hurt my girlfriend!  In what universe is that _nothing_?”  He backhanded a lamp off the end table and Lee stepped in front of Kara.

Zak’s chuckle was almost devoid of emotion.  “I’m not going to hurt her.  You’ve already done that.”  He paced back and forth in the tiny bit of space between the living room and the kitchen.  “You’ve been frakking him in your head for weeks now, Kara.  I guess it was foolish of me to think it would never happen while you were awake.”

“We _weren’t_ awake, Zak.  We both thought we were dreaming.”  Lee’s voice was pleading.

“Not helping, Lee.  Knowing that it was normal enough for you to be dreaming of frakking each other that it never occurred to either of you that it might be real?  I can’t wrap my head around that.”

He stopped, his back to them, his hands on the butcher block.  “I’ll go back to my room at the dorm.  I don’t want to see you outside of class.  A week ought to be long enough for those to fade.  I can’t talk to you until they’re gone.”  He paused, “And I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can talk to you, Lee,” then walked out the door without looking at either of them again.

Kara stood there, shocked, shivering.  She didn’t feel Lee take the clothes from her hands, and she let him dress her without any awareness of it.  When he pulled her into his arms. she struggled briefly, then collapsed into him, letting her tears go.  She woke up in her own bed, with no idea how she’d gotten home.

~~~

When Kara got to school the next day, there was an email to all of Zak’s instructors that a student, one Zakary Adama, had called in a “family emergency” and would not be in class for a week.  She got through the rest of her teaching day by sheer dint of will.

~~~

Kara picked up the phone twenty-nine times during the next week to call Lee, and hung up without dialing every time.

Every day, she checked the mirror on the bathroom door.  On Monday after work, when she saw where some of her bruises were, she could almost understand why Zak had been so angry.  Truthfully, she could understand anyway.  She’d frakked up, badly.  She should never have gone to Lee’s when she was wasted.  But gods!  She couldn’t even remember any of that night.  Except the dream.  That was etched in her memory in vivid detail.  And the door code.  Gods, how stupid was that?

~~~

The following Sunday, Zak let himself into the apartment and woke her up.  “Get dressed.  I’ll wait in the living room.”

When she sat on the chair across from the couch, Zak looked at her for a minute or two, with no expression on his face at all.  “I’m going away for a while.  I’ve already gotten my sabbatical approved by the Commandant of the school.  When I come back - _if_ I come back, I’m switching to Raptors.  I only went with Vipers because of my dad and Lee, and I don’t want to take a chance that you’d be my instructor again.”

When Kara made a sound and put her hand on her mouth, he looked anywhere but at her.  “Don’t worry.  I didn’t report you.  I know this was at least as much me as you.  I didn’t give you much chance to say no.”  He stood and paced in front of the couch.  “When I come back, I don’t know if I’m coming back to you.”

“I can wait.”

“No, Kara, you can’t.  Don’t make promises both of us know you won’t, can’t, keep.   I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and let’s be honest - you won’t last two weeks without a frak.”

“I think that’s a little uncalled for.”

Zak laughed.  “ _That’s_ uncalled for?  Maybe.  But it’s true.”

“I guess I deserve that.”

“You deserve a lot more than that, but I can’t - even as hurt and angry as I am with you, I still love you.  And I’m angrier at Lee.  You were drunk.  I get that - I’ve done really stupid things when I was drunk, too.  But Lee wasn’t drunk and he should have stopped you.”  He turned toward the stairs to leave.  “What would be really great is if you could promise not to frak my brother anymore.”

“I - “ Kara looked at her hands.

Zak snorted in disgust.  “You can’t say it, can you?  You’re stone cold sober and you can’t honestly tell me you’ll never frak my brother again.”  He climbed the stairs to the door.  “Have a nice life, Kara Thrace.”

~~~

Kara managed to get through a week by rote, showing up for classes, leaving campus the second she was finished, and lasted until Friday without calling Lee.

“Lee?  I tried not to call you, I really did, but I need you.  Can you please just come and be my friend today?”

~~~

Lee couldn’t remember how many times he’d thought about calling Kara and had put the phone back down.  He missed his friend horribly, and when she finally called, he was out the door practically before she’d hung up.  He had no idea what this was going to do to their friendship, but he would do almost anything he had to do to keep Kara in his life.

~~~

“I have to stop drinking.  It didn’t happen while I was with Zak - maybe because I was almost always with him at the end of the night - but the only time I wake up and wonder whose bed I’m in is when I’m completely wasted.  I can’t take that chance any more.  Frak, Lee, I could have woke up dead!”

“Gods, Kara, don’t say that!  I can’t - no.”  He pulled her across his lap and hugged her.  “I can’t deal with that.”  He sat there a minute, thinking furiously.  “What if - what if you moved in with me?”

Kara punched him in the chest.  “What the frak, Lee?  Haven’t we frakked this up enough?”

“Kara!  Not like that!  My apartment’s small, yeah, but we can rearrange the living room, and I can get a pull-out couch to sleep on, and gods know the closet’s big enough for four people’s clothes - it’s probably bigger than the frakkin’ bathroom.  There’s not much alcohol there, so I can get rid of it.  There’s always somebody looking to hit a party who’d welcome a free bottle of booze.”  He looked at her earnestly.  “I just thought it might help you stop if you weren’t in your old place - everybody knows where to find you if they want to drop in with a deck of cards and a couple of bottles of whiskey.  If you’re at my place instead, nobody can do that.”

~~~

Lee had worn Kara down and she’d moved.  It was awkward at first, much more than Lee had anticipated.  The worst part had been the first week, when Kara had brought home a different guy every night.

~~~

She tried to keep herself away from Lee by frakking other guys.  Then about a week after she’d moved in, she’d been arrested by the expression of hurt on his face, and she’d heard Zak’s voice “You can’t last two weeks without a frak.” and she’d been humiliated to realize he’d been right. _I couldn’t promise him that I wouldn’t frak Lee, but I can promise myself that I won’t do this anymore.  It’s not any good, anyway.  Nothing feels right.  I haven’t even come since that night with Lee.  Time to grow up, Kara Thrace._  In a way, it made things worse, because there was an itch under her skin to touch Lee as often as possible.  Before, she’d been able to do that without thinking about the consequences.  Now, they were both extra careful to keep things appropriate, whatever that was.  She hoped Lee wasn’t as miserable as she was - if he got tired of her, she’d have to move again, and that would be the least of it.

~~~

Kara had been going hard all week, trying to keep herself exhausted enough to not think about Lee or Zak or anything, if she could help it.  She sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Lee, and they were watching some action adventure they’d probably both seen twelve times.  When Kara started nodding off, she fell toward Lee and ended up with her head in Lee’s lap.  

Lee watched Kara sleep, stroking her back, playing with her hair, wishing... _What do I wish exactly?  That I’d never met her?  That I didn’t frak her in my sleep?  That my brother never found out?  That she’d realize I’m in love with her, too?  That he’d come back and tell her it’s okay to be with me?_  Mostly, he just wished that things could be back to normal between them.  It had been difficult, being in love with his brother’s girlfriend, but he’d been able to touch her, hug her, joke with her.  All that was before, though.  Before he knew what she tasted like.  Before he’d felt her coming around him.  Before he’d seen his marks on her.  Before his sudden possessive streak.

He sighed and clicked off the TV.  He hated to do it, but...”Kara.”  He shook her gently.  “You need to go to bed.”   _Somewhere other than my bed, preferably_.

She mumbled at him, but sat up.  He stood in front of the couch and she reached her arms up, like a child asking to be picked up.   _Only when she’s half asleep is she still comfortable with me_.  He picked her up and carried her to bed, then turned around and walked back out, closing the door behind him.  

~~~

Kara went by her old apartment to check the mail.  When she’d moved in with Lee, she’d decided to keep her apartment for painting and for just-in-case.  In hindsight, she thought it might have been better to bring her forget-Lee fraks here instead of to Lee’s apartment.  

It had been several weeks, and her mailbox was full.  She sorted everything onto the kitchen counter, and most of it could be tossed, but she set aside the bills, and there was one thing she was almost afraid to look at.  She stared at the picture on the front of it for several minutes before she picked it up with two fingers and gingerly turned it over, dropping it right back down on the counter.

_I don’t understand._

_I think I’m beginning to._

_I haven’t forgiven you._

He had sent it to her address, but had neither written her name nor signed his own.  She looked at it for a couple more minutes before gathering up all the junk mail and tossing the postcard into the recycling bin with it.  She didn’t need it to remind her of the worst mistake of her life.

~~~

Weeks passed.  Months passed.  Kara found it both easier and harder than she’d imagined to limit herself to the occasional glass of wine with dinner.  

On the one hand, Lee didn’t bring anything alcoholic home except wine a couple of times a month.  He hardly drank at all, and that made it easy to avoid.  She didn’t go out much, and when she did, she’d learned to just order water or tea with her food.  She still got out and played pool some, but drank water mostly.  It looked like alcohol, and nobody questioned her changing her drink-of-choice.  Plus, her game had gotten better.

On the other hand, she had a lot of time to think, and more than once she wished for a drink to erase the memories of her night with Lee.  There were nights she didn’t sleep at all, thinking about Lee snoring in the other room, thinking about how easy it would be to just open her door and go out there.  Even after everything that had happened, she was pretty sure Lee wouldn’t say no to her.  She had time to think about the blackout drinking that had had her waking up in places she didn’t recognize, before Zak had come along.  

She got two more postcards, both repeating pretty much the same message.  He didn’t understand why she’d frakked his brother, and he wasn’t ready to forgive her.  The third post card shocked her.

_I’ll be in town in a couple of weeks._

_We need to talk.  All three of us._

_I’ll be staying at mom’s.  I’ll call from there._

She didn’t know what to tell Lee, since she hadn’t told him that she’d gotten the postcards, and she’d recycled all of them.  Gods knew she didn’t need to look at them to feel guilty about what she’d done.  After about a week, Lee confronted her.  “What’s going on, Kara?  You’ve been so edgy lately!  Do you want to move out or something?”

“Gods, no, Lee!  I don’t want to move out.  I’ve actually been thinking about letting go of the apartment when the lease expires.  It’s something else.”

“Then what?  You know you can talk to me about it.”

She paced in front of the coffee table.  “Zak’s coming back to town and he wants to see us - both of us,” she blurted out.

“Zak’s - how do you know?”

“He’s been sending me postcards every so often.  I’ve gotten four.  The last one said he’d be coming to town in a couple of weeks.  I don’t know when exactly, because there wasn’t a date on it, and I only check my mail on Sundays.  He said he’d call.”

When the phone rang, they both looked at it like it was going to jump off the counter and bite them.  Lee walked over and answered it cautiously.  Then he held it out to Kara.

She looked at Lee, who gave away nothing, and took the phone gingerly.  “Hello?”

“Kara.”  She closed her eyes at the sound of Zak’s voice.  She’d missed him, but it hurt to still hear the note of condemnation in his tone.  “I went by the apartment.  Clearly you haven’t lived there in months.  Did you even wait a day before moving in with my brother?”

“Zak,” she whispered.  “It isn’t like that.  I mean, yes, I’m living over here at Lee’s, but I’m not living with him.  You said you wanted to talk, so let’s do that.  Let me explain.”

Lee carefully kept his backed turned to her - she sounded like she was going to cry, and she hadn’t done that in months.  He wasn’t sure he could handle it if she did.  When he heard her say, “Let me explain,” he turned and walked down the hall to the head.   _Frak explaining to him, Kara.  He left you.  He doesn’t deserve an explanation for what you’ve been doing while he’s been gone gods know where_.  He flushed and washed his hands to keep up the pretense, and walked back out to the kitchen.  Kara had hung up the phone and was standing next to the counter, staring into space.

“Kara?  You okay?”

She turned and leaned against him.  “Lee, he sounds so angry.  Maybe even more than he was the day he left.”

He couldn’t stop himself from putting his arms around her.  “Did he say where he wants to meet?”

“No.  He - he said he’d have to call back.”  She burrowed further into Lee.  “What if he doesn’t give me the chance to explain?”

Lee stroked her hair.  “Kara, you’ve done nothing wrong since he left.  In fact, you’ve done a lot of things right.  You have nothing to explain.  If he refuses to see that, it’s his problem, not yours.”  He squeezed her, then stepped away.  “Now, how about we go get something to eat.  Or at least walk around the block like we’re going to eat.”

“Walk sounds good.”

Zak sat across the street behind his car’s tinted windows and watched them come out of Lee’s apartment building.  They weren’t touching each other, and Kara looked unhappy, exhausted.  He refused to acknowledge the ridiculousness of being angry at Kara for turning to Lee when he left, and being equally angry at Lee for not taking better care of her.   _I thought he loved her.  I thought she’d be happy with me out of the way.  She looks almost….broken.  I need to talk to Lee first, without Kara_.  He watched in the side mirror until they turned the corner, still not touching, and he started the car and drove away.

~~~

Zak called Lee on a Tuesday.  He was pretty sure she’d still be at Flight School, and was prepared to hang up if she answered.

“Hello?”

“Lee.  Does Kara still stay late on Tuesdays?”

“Yeah,” Lee answered warily.

“Good.  Can you meet me, then?”

“Kara said you wanted to talk to both of us.”

“I do, but I want to talk to you first.  The Square?”

“Yeah.  I guess.  Half an hour.”

When they got there, they just stood looking at each other.  Lee made the first move and gestured toward an empty bench.

“What do you want, Zak?”  Lee tried to get to the point.

“You sound angry, Lee.”

“I am.”

“What right do you have to be angry?  She cheated on me.  With you.”

“Gods, Zak!  She was completely wasted.  She still doesn’t remember that night.”

“So what was your excuse?”

“I thought I was dreaming, and it wasn’t weird enough to wake me up.”  Lee clamped his jaw and turned his face away.  There was no need for Zak to know that it was always Kara in those dreams.  

“Look, Lee.  I actually don’t want to fight about this.  I only came back to get my stuff out of storage at the Academy and pack up whatever’s left in my room.  I won’t be coming back.  Not to town.  Not to the Academy.  Not to Kara.”

“So you’re going to just leave again, and not even bother to talk to her?  What the frak, Zak?”

“No.  I’ll talk to her.  I’ll talk to both of you.”

“You’d better.  She deserves some closure.  Hell, she deserves more than that for all the work she’s put into changing her life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She doesn’t drink any more.  Maybe a glass of wine with dinner a couple of times a month.  She hasn’t had sex since about a week after you left.  She -”

“What?  Kara Thrace?  Celibate?  Why is she living with you if you aren’t frakking each other?”

Lee exploded off the bench.  “Because I’m her friend, for frak’s sake!  She told me she had to stop drinking.  The easiest way to do that was to not be where temptation was one knock on the door away.  All of her old drinking buddies knew where she lived.  So I convinced her to move to my place.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart.  Right.”

“No.  Because I’m her friend, and I couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy, and honestly, when she told me about the blackouts, I was afraid next time she’d be somewhere she wasn’t safe.  She knew she’d done something awful, and she knew that if something didn’t change, she’d probably do it again.  She needed help.”

“And you expect me to believe that in all the time I’ve been gone, the two of you haven’t frakked even once.  How do you know she isn’t frakking other guys when she’s out at night?”

“She hardly ever goes out, and when she does, she doesn’t drink.  Most of the time, I’m with her.  She’s been fragile, Zak.  She needed someone to lean on.”

“What are you getting out of it, Lee?  Why are you living in the same apartment with her and getting nothing out of the deal?  What’s the point?”

Lee laughed humorlessly.  “That has got to be one of the stupidest things you’ve ever said.  I do get something out of it, Zak.  It’s called friendship.  We watch TV.  We go out and play pool sometimes.  She kicks my ass at Triad.  She helps me study.  She eats whatever I make, even when it sucks.”

“Sounds to me like she’s still in love with you.  Kinda sounds to me like you’re in love with her, too.  I thought so back then.”

Lee turned away and didn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” Zak said tiredly.  “Look.  I should be done getting everything shipped by Friday.  Class usually gets out early on Fridays.  We could meet somewhere for an early dinner.  The three of us.  That little Aquarian place?  Booth’ll give us plenty of privacy, and the food’s good.”

“Fine.  We’ll be there as soon as she gets home from class.”

Zak watched Lee walk away.

~*~

At dinner on Friday, Zak watched them.  Conversation was stilted and uncomfortable between him and Kara, and there was no changing that.  Having been intimately connected to her for months, though, he was familiar with the little tells he doubted she even knew she had.  She trusted Lee, but she was holding herself back.  And Lee.  Zak had no idea how neither of them could see what they felt for each other.   _So what do I do about it?  Am I going to punish them forever for this?  I sort of understand it now.  Can I let go of my anger?  Not forgive them but just accept it and move on with my life?  Do I want to be stuck resenting them?  Or do I want to eventually have my family back in one piece?  Was what she did so bad that I want her to pay for it by losing the love of her life?  What if this was me and Miranda?_

He got out of his head long enough to finish dinner.  He made an effort to keep the conversation on neutral topics.  He wasn’t ready to tell them about Miranda, or what he’d done with his life while he was gone, or why he’d ultimately chosen not to stay in the Fleet.  But he decided that eventually, he wanted to be able to share her and that part of his life with them.  He wanted to invite them to his wedding.

When they were done eating, they parted ways as amicably as was possible under the circumstances.  He watched as they walked to the parking lot.  Kara was never going to be happy if things stayed the way they were.  At some point, she would think she was holding Lee back, would want Lee to be happy, and she would believe that meant without her, and she would disappear from both their lives, and Lee would never be the same.   _Do I want that?  Kara Thrace, gone from my life forever? My brother, miserable, because he lost the love of his life?  No_.

That settled in his mind, he picked up the phone.  He knew they wouldn’t be home yet, so he called the apartment and left them a message.

~*~

Kara looked at Lee with wide eyes.  “Lee...did he just say what I think he said?”

Lee was equally stunned.  “I’m pretty sure, yeah.  What now?”

She moved in to put her arms around him, inviting him to envelop her in his, and put her head on his chest.  “Well, I’m not gonna lie and say that I don’t want to drag you to bed, but maybe we should think about it.  I don’t want to screw this up by jumping in without thinking.  We should talk about things.”

If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it.  “I can live with that.”

She raised her head and grinned up at him, “But I think you can definitely stop sleeping on the couch.”

He took her upturned face as the invitation it probably was and covered her mouth with his.  More emotion than heat was behind the kiss.  “I could sort of go for a nap, now that you mention it.”

Kara laughed.  “Naptime totally needs to be a thing in our place.”

Some part of Lee welled with a feeling he couldn’t describe at how easily ‘our place’ rolled off her tongue.   _Our Place_.  He really liked the sound of that.  He tightened his arm and turned them toward the bedroom.  They stripped down to underwear, crawled in and he pulled the covers up over them.  They fell asleep wrapped around each other, content in the knowledge that this time, they weren’t doing anything wrong.

~*~

Next time Zak saw them for dinner at his mom’s, he could see the results of his decision, and knew, however much it still hurt him, he’d made the right choice.  He could tell by their body language that they hadn’t slept together yet, which frankly puzzled him, but they were comfortable with each other again - smiling, little inconsequential touches, finishing each other’s sentences.  When had they stopped doing that?  He remembered how when they’d all been friends, at least when he’d thought that’s all they were, Lee and Kara used to talk that way all the time, as if they shared two halves of a brain.  They’d given new meaning to the terms left brain and right brain.  Maybe it was good that he could remember that fondly again.

After Lee and Kara left, when he knew they wouldn’t have gotten home yet, he left another message:  “I’m glad.”  He didn’t quite mean it yet, but he felt like he could.  He left Caprica again less angry and resentful, but very happy he wouldn’t have to deal with them daily.  He was still too raw for that.

~*~

Lee had always been a morning person, and now that he was sharing his bed with Kara, there were a lot of mornings he’d wake before his alarm went off and just watch her sleep.  Then, timing it just right, he’d kiss her awake.  He loved the noises she made first thing in the morning, and the way her sleepy voice rasped his name.  He was pretty sure he wanted to hear that every morning for the rest of his life, but he didn’t want to scare Kara away, so he kept it to himself for now.

Kara loved waking up to Lee in the mornings.  He was better than any alarm clock she’d ever had, and more and more she was feeling like she could wake up to his face for the rest of her life.  She wasn’t ready to tell him that, but she wanted to express what she was feeling somehow, so she came up with a plan: next long weekend - dinner out someplace special, food stocked up in the kitchen, weekend in bed.

She wrote ‘Keep This Night Free’ on the kitchen calendar and made reservations at a place she was pretty sure would have kicked her drunk ass out a year ago.  She went shopping, made Helo come with her, and bought a dress.  When Helo shifted and stuck his hands in his pockets, avoiding her eyes, she was pretty sure she’d found the right one.  She took Lee’s good suit to the cleaners two weeks ahead of time and hung it back in the closet, behind some things he didn’t wear very often.  And for the first time in her life, she shopped for underwear - real underwear, the kind that made men drool.  She took the dress with her so she could be sure everything was perfect.  Once the saleswoman heard what she wanted, she was extremely helpful, pointing out problem areas Kara didn’t see in the mirror, sharing little tips and tricks she’d learned over the years, and finding Kara three perfect sets of underwear -  red, black and this gorgeous green that complemented her eyes “magnificently.”

On the evening in question, Kara got ready early, then dressed in sweats and a t-shirt.  When Lee got home, she had hung the suit on the bathroom door, and she told him to take a shower and get dressed.  Once he’d opened the door and pulled the suit in, she tore off the clothes and put on the dress and the heels and checked her makeup, then waited in the living room - the chair Zak had sat in nearly a year ago - so Lee couldn’t see her until he was in the living room.  

She heard him messing around in the bedroom, probably finding his tie-tack and cuff-links, and then his measured tread down the hall.  She stood up and waited nervously.

Lee cleared the hall and looked toward her.  “Kar...Holy...oh my gods.”  He dropped onto the barstool, dumbstruck.

_Exactly the reaction I was looking for, Lee_.  She made herself calmly ask, “You ready?”

“Uh, give me a minute.  I’m still recovering.”

She smiled brightly at him, walking forward until she was within reach, and she ran a hand down his sleeve.  “I knew you looked good in a uniform, but you look pretty spectacular in a suit, too, Lee.”

He shook his head.  “I don’t think there are even words for how good you look.”

“Really?  You think I look good enough for Le Jardin?”  She wasn’t above fishing.  Not today.

“I’m not sure _they’re_ good enough for you.”  

“Well, they think they are, so if we’re late, we miss our reservation.”  She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it.

“It’s going to be torture sitting across from you, trying to eat dinner with you looking like that, Kara.”

She grinned mischievously and shook her head.  “It won’t be torture.  Not really.  Not until I tell you something else.”

“Gods.  Tell me what?”

“Wait until you see what I’m wearing underneath.”

“Frak.”  He yanked her toward him and kissed her fervently, running his hand down her back to just above her ass.  

Kara grabbed his hand.  “Nuh-uh, Lee.  No cheating.  You find out when we get home.”

“Karaaaa.”  He tried again.

“Nope.  Can you walk?”  She laughed.

“Brat.”

During dinner, Lee was pretty sure he was going to leave the restaurant with a mess in his pants.  Kara sat beside him, but not right next to him, and she had dropped a shoe on the floor and ran her toes under one of his pants legs for what seemed like hours.  By the time dinner was over, and he’d watched her eat her dessert, very delicately and deliberately licking the fork and her lips when she was done, he was just thankful that this suit had a long jacket.

He pushed her up against the car, needing to kiss her now, and he was gratified by her moan.  “Mmm.  Let’s go home, Lee.  I have plans for you.”  She wiped her thumb across his lower lip.  “Naked plans.”

His head fell to her shoulder.  “Gods, Kara.  You’re killing me.”

She flipped them around slowly and ground herself into his erection.  “So let’s go home already, Lee.”

They managed to make it back to the apartment, and Kara’s back thunked against the door as it closed, Lee kissing her ravenously.  He stopped, put his hands on her face and looked her in the eyes.  “If this isn’t going where I think it is, please tell me now, Kara.”

She pulled at his tie.  “Take me to bed, Lee,” she said, then let out a little scream when he picked her up and carried her down the hall.  “In a hurry, are we?”

“Yes,” he growled at her.  He set her gently on the edge of the bed and told her to wait before he started stripping off everything and just tossing it on the floor.  Kara giggled, and he stopped.  “Are you laughing at me?”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you toss your clothes on the floor.”

Finally naked, he knelt on the floor to take off her shoes and skim his hands up her legs.  “It’s not going to the be the only first tonight, Kara.”

She clapped her hands down on his to stop their movement.  When he cocked his head in question, she said, “Just...I want to say something before I lose my nerve.”  The glide of his thumbs on her thighs was making her heart skip. _Those thumbs are so close to where I want them.  But I have to say this first.  I need to say it before we do this, so maybe he’ll understand how much I mean it_.  She took a deep breath and cupped his cheek with her hand.  She closed her eyes.

“Whatever it is, Kara, it’s okay.  You can tell me.”

“I love you,” she said quietly.

He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap, hugging her tight.  “Gods, Kara.  I love you, too.”  He held her for long minutes before she tipped her face up and kissed his neck.  This time when they started, it was all slower, without the mad dash for the finish line.

They kissed slowly, exploring each other.  She nipped at his upper lip before sucking it in gently.  He licked at her mouth and his tongue dueled with hers when she opened to him.  For a long time, his arms held her tight, almost unwilling to let go, but eventually he gave in to the need to touch her with his hands.  He pulled one leg across the other, closer to his hip, and pushed his fingers up her calf and thigh at a snail’s pace.  His mouth left hers to trail kisses down her jaw to her shoulder, and her head fell back as she groaned.  

“Gods, Lee.  This feels so good.”

He pulled the pads of his fingers down the front of her leg to her ankle, pushing her ankle until her knee bent.  His palm slid up her inner thigh to tease her, making circles with his thumb until she was panting.  “Leeee.”  She reached to try to get at the zipper down the side of the dress, and Lee stopped her.  

“I’m not ready for this dress to come off yet.”  He pushed the skirt up just a bit, expanding his thumb’s movement on her thigh.  “I love how you look in it.”

She clamped her thighs together playfully.  “But you haven’t seen the underwear yet, Lee.  If I promise to wear the dress again sometime, will you please take it off me?”  She wasn’t sure what persuaded him, her promise to wear the dress again or the thought of the underwear, but he relented, pushing her off his lap to her feet.

He pulled the zipper tab down her side achingly slowly, then dropped his hands to the hem of the dress and lifted it a finger’s width at a time, watching her eyes the entire time.  As much as he wanted to make love to her, he was enjoying the way her breath hitched as she waited for him to undress her, the almost inaudible whimpers when he glided past a spot that turned her on.  Then the dress got high enough that his fingers rubbed up against lace and little tiny bows marching up the front of the panties, and he had to stop.  He hadn’t even seen them yet and he was in danger of coming all over her like a twelve-year-old having a wet dream.

He pressed his forehead to her belly.  “Kara.  Frak.”

She put her hands down to grasp at the hem and pull it up, and he stopped her.  “Just hold still, Kara.”

“But, Lee…”

“I need a minute, Kara.  If that dress goes any higher right now, I’m liable to make a mess all over the dress and you and - I just need a minute.”

Kara pulled his chin up.  “The dress can be cleaned.  I can’t wait much longer, Lee.  I need to feel you on my skin.  I need - gods, I need you, so either you take it off or I do.”

He stood, bringing the dress up with him, peeling it off over her head and dropping it on the floor on top of his own clothes.  He’d turned so that her back was to the dresser mirror, and he closed his eyes to kiss her again.  Her hands were roaming his waist, his hips.  He grabbed her hands and put them both behind her back.  “You need to stop. touching. me.”

Kara laughed, low and sultry, and it vibrated through him.  She pretended to fight him, and their lower bodies ground against each other.  He let go of her wrists and shoved his hands into her panties, taking them down her hips.  She had reached forward and unfastened her bra, spilling her breasts out into his chest.  His eyes popped open, and fastened on the sight of his hands on her ass in the mirror.   _Gods.  I am not going to last_.  He shook his head.  “I’m sorry, Kara.  I will never make it through foreplay.  I can’t wait.”

She kissed him feverishly and ran her tongue across his lip.  “Who needs foreplay, Lee?  I’ve been on the edge, planning this for weeks.  You could have frakked me against the door an hour ago.”

“I wanted this time to be special.”

“Lee, sometimes, you are such a girl.”  She hugged him and pushed him toward the bed.  “It’s going to be special because it’s you and me, not because we take our time the first time.  Now, Apollo - “ as she pushed him down and straddled him, “- are you gonna frak your girlfriend, or what?”

Surprise laced his voice as he repeated, “Girlfriend.  Kara Thrace is my girlfriend.  Oh, I like the sound of that.”  He rolled them over and plunged in.  

“Oof.”

“Frak.  Did I hurt you?”  She kicked him and her hands pulled at his ass.  “Guess not.”

“Lee.  Please.   _Please_.  Frak me now.”

Hours later, she’d lost count of how many times he’d made her come - he’d been determined to make up for the “bad” first time.  She was exhausted, boneless, very well frakked.  Happy and oh, so satisfied.

Lee stomach growled, and a peal of laughter escaped her.  He frowned at her.  “That is not funny.  I don’t know how I can be hungry already.”

She smirked at him and smacked his ass.  “I knew you would be.  Well,” she added coyly, “I hoped you would be.”  She tossed her hand toward the bedroom door.  “There’s food in the fridge.  Bring it back here.”

Instead of getting out of bed, he held her down and kissed her until she was moaning.  “Do I look like your slave?”

She made a show of pushing him away and looking at every inch of him.  “Yep.”

He buried his head in her shoulder.  “Yeah.  You’re probably right.”  He pushed himself off the bed and headed for the kitchen.

She called after him, “Bring the water, too!”

When Lee came back, he asked, “You really planned everything, didn’t you?”  He held up the tray she’d made ahead of time.  

She shrugged her shoulder.  “I hoped.  I didn’t want us to have to leave the apartment for anything unless we wanted to.”

“An entire weekend in bed?  Good call.”  He put the tray down and kissed her again.   _Not sure I’ll ever get enough of kissing her._

They ate slices of cheese and drank water to recoup their strength.  Kara made a game out of eating the fruit, and Lee protested at first, but she playfully insisted, and lined them up down his chest and stomach.  “Nope.  You have to stay absolutely still no matter what I do, and neither one of us can use our hands.”  By the time she got to his belly, he had his fists full of sheets to keep from either pushing her further down or pulling her up to kiss the hell out of her.  

She licked her way down, bumping into his cock with her cheek and chin, and he surprised them both by stopping her.  She looked at him like he was crazy.  “It’s not that I don’t want that, but Kara, gods, I need to be inside you again!”

Kara crawled up his body, kissing her way back along the path she’d taken with the fruit.  Lee briefly considered returning the favor, but instead he shoved the platter onto the bedside table and made love to his girlfriend until they fell into exhausted sleep.

~*~

Zak opened the package from his mother, wondering what she’d sent this time.  She made a habit of sending him cookies and little trinkets from wherever she traveled.  This time, there was a plain white envelope on top.  He opened it and saw:

 

_Leland Joseph Adama and Kara Thrace request the pleasure of your company at their marriage_

_The Twenty-third day of Ares_

_at_

_…._

As he read it, he felt a twinge of...something.  After poking at it a bit, he determined it was mostly sadness that he’d spent the last year still holding a grudge for something that in the end, had been good for them all.  He finished reading it and nodded.  It was time to introduce Miranda to everyone.  It was time to make his family whole again.

FIN


End file.
